Listen to the Rain
by Mrs Ronald Weasley
Summary: Please don't let go, can't we stay for awhile? It's just too hard to say goodbye. HouseWilson slash. Written in second person.


**Listen to the Rain**

Author: Mrs. Ronald Weasley

Rating: PG-13 or T

Pairing/s: House/Wilson

Spoilers: None

Warnings: Major character death

Category: Angst/Tragedy/Romance

Summary: Please don't let go, can't we stay for awhile? It's just too hard to say goodbye.

A/N: Bold, italic textare song lyrics, Bold text are thoughts, Italic text is a flash back/memory. I apologize for the extreme cliche and cheesiness of this story, I might get around to changing it in the future, but at the moment I have other things that have to be done.

_**Listen to each drop of rain**_

_**Whispering secrets in May**_

_**Frantically searching for someone to hear**_

_**That story be more than it hides**_

_**Please don't let go can't we stay for a while?**_

_**It's just too hard to say goodbye**_

_**Listen to the rain**_

You stand alone in your office; your eyes fixed on the window in front of you. You're watching the rain roll down the blurred glass. Never before had the rain held so much meaning for you; it rained the first time you kissed him, it rained the first time you'd made love. And now it rained while he was dying.

You remember the day of his diagnosis like it was yesterday, but in actuality was last spring, last May. It rained on that day too.

And now here you are, one year later, standing in the exact same office that you did when he told you that he only had three months left to live. It was then that you decided to take the next step in your relationship and whether you wanted to admit it or not, it was your love for him that kept him alive past those three months.

A clock somewhere in the distance chimes five times, telling you that its time for you to go home for the day. You pull your eyes away from the window, turn around, and head out the door, but not home. You cannot stand to be in your house, not without him. You'd spent too much time there with him, and when he dies you plan on selling it and moving away.

Moving somewhere exotic, where you can live the rest of your life freely, without any painful memories of you and him. All you ever wanted was to be happy, but you never got it and now you fear that you never will.

You stop at a vending machine on the way to his room to grab yourself a coffee, something to hide behind if you find yourself overcome with your emotions. Doctors and nurses that pass you, avoid looking you in the face, mostly in fear of being insulted. It's not your fault that this is happening, it's not theirs, or even his, but you feel as if something needs to be done about it because if the cancer had been caught sooner he might've been cured.

You curse him for not noticing it when he, of all people, should have. But you curse yourself even more for not doing something about it when you found out. **Whatever happened to not stopping until the case is solved?** You ask yourself, but in your heart you know that the case was already solved and that there was nothing that could've been done to cure the terminal cancer that is killing your best friend.

As you reach the closed door to his room you contemplate whether or not you should go in. You don't want to, you don't want to say goodbye, not yet anyway. But an invisible hand reaches out and pulls your arm and hand, and you open the door slowly.

_**Listen to the rain, weeping**_

You take in a deep breath as you survey your surroundings: a single bed with crisp white sheets, the blinds on the window are closed, **why?** You ask yourself. It's not like there's any bright sunlight out there, not with the rain clouds covering the sky. Finally your eyes come to rest on the man lying in the bed. It's not a sight you care to see, but yet you cannot draw your eyes away from him. His once fair skin is as pale as ash with the grayish tint of death already in it. His once handsome face is sunken in and looks skeletal now, and you pray to a god that you stopped believing in long ago, that you don't have to see the rest of his deteriorated body that lies beneath the sheets. His eyes are closed, the only part of him that is still the same as you remember.

The empty armchair beside the bed is where you sit. You twirl your cane from hand to hand in boredom, frustration, anger, pain. Your coffee sits, forgotten on the bedside table as you reach out to take a shrunken hand in your own.

"Greg…" You look up at the sound of your name. It was the faintest of sounds, something you would've missed had you not had your mind on nothing else.

"Hey," you whisper, trying your best not to sound choked and flash a painful smile instead. You don't intend for it to be agonizing, but since your face cannot hide the hurt you're feeling, the smile could not be sincere.

A sudden coughing fit overcomes him and you reach around to the bedside table and retrieve a half filled cup of water. Once it's secured in your slightly trembling hand you hold it up to your best friend's lips, offering him a few sips of the tasteless liquid.

"Thank you," he mutters and you just nod your head, while placing the cup back on the table.

Silence fills the void in between you for at least a minute, it feels like the stillness of death, but that is yet to come. "How are you feeling?" you ask in an effort to break the deep silence.

In truth it's not a question that you care to have answered, you know how he's feeling, he probably wishes that he was dead and this was all over, and although you don't want to loose him, you know that deep down inside your own heart, you wish that too.

"It hurts…" he replies.

"I know…" You know that the cancer is so far advanced that there's nothing that you can possibly give him that would take away all his pain.

You turn to look at his drip, "do you want some more morphine?" As a doctor you know that he really shouldn't be given anymore, but it's gotten to the point where you give a damn about ethical responsibility anymore, not that you ever did.

"Greg, I can't take it anymore…" he almost sobs. "Please…please…"

You know what he asking you to do, and if it was any other patient, you wouldn't. You nod your head and say, "okay," before getting up from the chair and limping out of the room.

_**I stand alone in the storm**_

_**Suddenly sweet words take hold**_

_**Hurry they say for you haven't much time**_

_**Open your eyes to the love around you**_

_**You may feel you're alone but I'm here still with you**_

_**You can do what you dream just remember to listen to the rain**_

Before slipping out of the door you check to make sure no one's walking by. You make your way back to your office where you retrieve two syringes of high dose morphine.

As you ride back up to his room in the elevator, you finger the syringes that lay in your pocket. You really have no idea why you agreed to do this, five minutes ago you were just thinking how you couldn't stand to loose him and now you're carrying the very things in your pocket that will bring him an earlier death. Not too earlier though, you remind yourself; as you recall the doctor that you had spoken to this morning, who had informed you that the only person that you managed to fall in love with since Stacy, wouldn't live to see the dawn.

The doors open and you limp out, still wondering why you are doing this. You open the door to his room and noiselessly slip back inside. His eyes are closed but you're reassured by the extremely slow rise and fall of his chest. You stare at him and wish that this was all a dream and that you will soon wake up.

"_I got us some cheap porn," you say as you close to the door to your apartment behind you. "You got the beer?"_

"_Yup," James answers from the couch. He's lying down with his nose in one of the many newspapers that you have lying around. _

"_And the Chinese?"_

"_Yeah."_

"_Good then," you shrug off your wet coat, cursing the rain that had dampened it on your short walk from your car to the door._

_It's a normal Friday night for you, or so it seems, but in the future this night will become one of the most important nights of your and his lives. _

_By midnight both of you are slightly drunk; drunk enough to have a buzz, but not drunk enough not to know what you're doing. _

_You're not sure what brought this about or even why James did this, but all you know is that his lips are pressed softly against yours and that somehow this all feels so right. He seems surprised when you part your lips, offering him access to your mouth and soon things get heated and you find that you cannot resist him._

_Soon he pulls you to your feet and starts off in the direction of the bedroom. "Wait," you say, as a million thoughts rush through your head, "do you want this?" _

"_I've wanted it for as long as I can remember," James replies with a fire that you've never seen before in his eyes. _

_You wake later that night to find you're best friend, and now lover, lying and sleeping peacefully beside you. His naked body beside yours is the most beautiful thing you've seen in your life. You smile the first real smile that you've smiled in a long time, and fall back to sleep with the assurance that things might just get a little better in life._

Now you stare at that same body, although you know that it will never be the one that you saw that night.

You finally walk over to the bedside and slowly pull the morphine from your pocket; his eyes are closed, and you implore that he doesn't open them to watch you induce his death.

Your hands shake as you pull the plastic cover off the syringe, and slowly inject the first one into the plastic tubing hooked to your lover.

"Greg…"

"It's okay," you reply refusing to look down into his eyes. "You'll be…out in a few minutes." You couldn't bear to say the word death, gone, or anything similar.

"Greg, please, listen to me," his voice is pleading and you find it harder to look away.

"I'm listening," you say almost bitterly as you set down the first syringe and reach for the second.

"I know you're afraid to love, because everyone that you've ever let into your heart has left you in one way or another, Stacy, and now…me," he paused, his breathing uneven as though he was crying. "And I'm afraid too, you know, not of dying, but of what is going happen to you afterwards."

"I'll be fine, Jimmy," you say setting the last syringe down on the table and once again reaching for his hand.

"No you won't," he says, "I know you Greg, and before I die, I can already feel the effects of the overdose, it's making me drowsy. I want you to make me one promise, okay?"

"What?" you ask.

"You can't shove anyone else out of your life just because you're afraid of getting your heart broken. When I'm gone, you're going to need help and I know Cameron will be there for you, she always was and she always will be. Cuddy, Chase, and Foreman too. Just please don't push them away like you tried to do to me because I'm sure they can take it…I'm sure you can take it. Open your eyes to the love around Greg, it's there, it always will be and so will I. I love you."

You sit there, slightly stunned at the words that were just said to you. You know it's true although, you're not sure if you can hold up on that promise.

It wasn't until now that you notice that he's struggling now to stay awake, "I love you too…" You stand and kiss him, just as his eyes close.

You raise your head and a noise fills the silence as his heart monitor flat lines…

_**Listen…**_


End file.
